In The Political Machine 2024, we wanted to make a feature to focus on one of the highlights of the presidential election cycle, debates! Presidential debates are televised events where candidates vying for the presidency discuss their stance on policies and engage in discourse. The selection of states for debates typically considers factors such as their political importance, demographics, and geographic spread to ensure broad representation and impact. I am playing as Marianne Williamson vs Vivek Ramaswamy, as it’s fun to see what alternative scenarios can play out. In Political Machine 2024, we decide a state debate location based on what is highly contested polling wise. The debate happens in the middle of the game. In this playthrough, Texas was the most contested state. Even if this is Marianne’s home state, it is still a Republican-leaning state meaning the topics with strong Republican stances are more likely to show up. [img]{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/44740336/8f3339a46219bde28be649c96802588db64df2c4.png[/img] [img]{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/44740336/9b81a16ea5fd662ed6c1ba887903aa03d230d158.png[/img] Knowing with the Debate will happen in Texas, my goal is not to win over Ramaswamy as that’s too uphill of a battle knowing Williamson’s negative stances on Republican-favored issues. Rather, we want to be sure that Ramaswamy doesn’t swing the state by dominating the debate. First I make sure I do research on the state to figure what are the top state issues in Texas that could potentially be discussed and make sure I jot down where Williamson aligns and respond correctly to not deter my own voters. [img]{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/44740336/29849e76bc00ed279b1036d2f9615089b4ecf83d.png[/img] Looking quickly at the top 5 issues currently, there’s only one that I see that Williamson have any chance at seeing discussed that favor Marianne is about Higher Minimum wage. The rest of the issues I see are Natural Gas and Oil, Job Outsourcing, topics on border protection, and Classroom Transparency. Since it’s a Republican favored state, I definitely see other Republican issues being pressed more. And so the debate begins… [img]{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/44740336/2489e8f9b500295f35a7b74339e9dc6294ee8ec6.png[/img] The debate has picked me to go first with the first topic being about classroom transparency. Knowing that the position of the Democrat part in Texas opposes it, I also select an opposition answer to align for a slight boost. This is to bait Ramaswamy to attack the position so he can get into the lead. Whoever leads in the debate will have to respond first. [img]{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/44740336/95b63281b5a68d0400fb5114d13ce639443c750a.png[/img] [img]{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/44740336/545bd237cb965d9a1455f8647eefcb789d2f1e41.png[/img] [img]{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/44740336/701337d1f6565b95b182b1268064ba2d7f1a233e.png[/img] Since he attacked, now I can play attack on Ramaswamy’s positions without having to worry about making personal stances against Republican-favored issues. By just attacking his support for the next 4 issues [Job Outsourcing, Border Protection, School Choice, and Second Amendment Protections], I was able to attack him constantly. Notice the bars at the bottom. [img]{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/44740336/cb26242117a01e9be8c9c01762ffbd82f504e3fb.png[/img] [img]{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/44740336/5879c89f8ec94845e78a0bad86ca917fa248a005.png[/img] And with the final result, Ramaswamy’s initial dominant performance has been curbed to just a small positive gain. Meanwhile, Williamson can walk away nicely with a neutral ending, knowing that she won’t be able to lose support. This results in Texas being maintained as a battleground state that can still be a tossup during election night. [img]{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/44740336/67d7af1bea1e6859e164d6777e0c9e56291c31bc.png[/img] With your help, we are getting good feedback to improving debates and hope to improve other elements of The Political Machine 2024! Please look forward to more updates and improvements soon!